Lewis Yablonsky’s wisdom appeared frequently in Southern California newspapers’ crime stories over the decades, helping readers to make sense of senseless violence.

A former Cal State Northridge professor of sociology and a renowned criminologist, Yablonsky was 89 when he died last month in Santa Monica. His loss will be felt by news reporters and courtroom attorneys who referred often to his Rolodex card.

That’s probably why his newspaper quotes were such a readable mix of academic language and plain talk.

In 2009, shortly after the 10th anniversary of the murder of a Filipino postal worker and woundings of five Jewish people at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, the man serving an irreducible life sentence for the shooting spree wrote a letter to the Daily News expressing “deep remorse” and renouncing his white-supremacist views.

One of the many people I phoned for comment was Yablonsky. Having interviewed more than 5,000 criminals in prison, he had seen such seeming “conversions” before.

It’s not uncommon, Yablonsky said, for prisoners to have authentic changes of heart — because many have little to do except rethink their lives — but also not uncommon for some who change to later change back.

After hearing what the killer wrote in his letter, Yablonsky addressed the question of whether the conversion was sincere. “I would say he has changed. I don’t think he’s falsifying it.”

Then Yablonsky added, as plainly as possible: “I still wouldn’t want to let him out.”

Kevin Modesti is a reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News and the Southern California News Group, covering the political scene in Los Angeles County. An L.A. native, he was a sports writer, columnist and editor for most of his career, and later an editorial board member, writer and editor in the Opinion section. He lives in the San Fernando Valley and is based in the Woodland Hills office.